Tomorrow at Ten

1962 British film by Lance Comfort

1962 (1962)

Running time

80 minsCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglish

Tomorrow at Ten is a 1962 British second feature^[1] thriller film directed by Lance Comfort and starring John Gregson, Robert Shaw and Kenneth Cope.^[2]

Plot

A man calling himself Marlow kidnaps Jonathan Chester, the young son of wealthy industrialist Anthony Chester, and locks him in a rented house with a golliwog containing a time bomb. He then goes to see the boy's father and announces that he will only reveal his whereabouts once he has been paid £50,000 (a large sum at the time) and is safely in Brazil. The boy's nanny alerts the police and Inspector Parnell arrives to discourage Chester from paying up lest it encourages giving in to blackmailers' demands. Marlow then reveals that the time bomb will go off at 10 a.m. the next day, killing Jonathan. This is too much for Chester who attacks Marlow, causing the crook serious injuries from which he later dies, leaving the police with little time or indication as to where to find Jonathan.

Cast

John Gregson as Inspector Parnell
Robert Shaw as Marlow
Alec Clunes as Anthony Chester
Alan Wheatley as Assistant Commissioner Bewley
Kenneth Cope as Sergeant Grey
Ernest Clark as Dr Towers
Piers Bishop as Jonathan Chester
Helen Cherry as Robbie
William Hartnell as Freddie Maddox
Betty McDowall as Mrs Parnell
Harry Fowler as Smiley
Renée Houston as Masie Maddox
Alan Curtis as Inspector
Noel Howlett as brain specialist
Trevor Reid as Q Detective
Ray Smith as Briggs
Norman Coburn as desk man

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "By killing off the blackmailer relatively early on, this film robs itself of its principal asset, for Robert Shaw is chillingly effective in an intelligent performance which, for about twenty minutes – his methodical preparations for the crime, his scenes with the boy, his verbal duet with the Inspector – deludes one into thinking that Lance Comfort's direction is much better than it really is. Well before Robert Shaw's disappearance, however, the script begins to show signs of strain, in suggestions that Marlow will break because he has some awful mother-fixation; and with his unlikely demise, and the eleventh hour revelation, it finally snaps and becomes pure routine. Robbed of script and actors, the direction is unkindly revealed in all its laborious reliance on uninspired cross-cutting back and forth from rescuers to boy cuddling explosive golliwog."^[3]

Tomorrow at Ten was selected by the film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane as one of the 15 most meritorious British B films made between World War II and 1970. While they praise the characterisation, the performances, the production design, the cinematography and the screenplay, they say that "the film's real strength is in the direction of the veteran Lance Comfort in one of his last films".^[4]

References

^ Chibnall, Steve; McFarlane, Brian (2009). The British 'B' Film. London: BFI/Bloomsbury. p. 387. ISBN 978-1-8445-7319-6.
^ "Tomorrow at Ten". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
^ "Tomorrow at Ten". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 30 (348): 121. 1 January 1963 – via ProQuest.
^ Steve Chibnall & Brian McFarlane, The British 'B' Film, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2009, pp. 281–82.